i leave you with this quote, one of my favorites from the story: "of course we don't have forever. we never did. isn't that what makes everything so much more exciting?"

when I began writing this, I was in the beginning of 10th grade. I'm now in my second week of 12th. I hold stories inside me when I write them, and this was there for too long, but I couldn't let go until I wrote it down completely and totally. dramatic? absolutely, but in my opinion you can't be a writer without a bit of a flair for the dramatic.

maybe you're finishing this last chapter wondering what the hell happened, how the hell any of the plot I devised was in any was plausible. and in truth, maybe it isn't. but I tried so many different endings, and this was the only one that remotely sat right with me.

it was extremely important to me that adi didn't become one of those lovesick girls in the last chapter. after all, why make her so hell bent on refusing to fall to (or for) pan for the entirety of the story, only to have her realize wait, I do love him at the very end?

that might just be my personality bleeding through into adi, but I tried to make her very different from me. pretty much our only similarities are the curly hair, left handedness, love for sarcasm, and distaste for love (although she isn't asexual like I am).

anyway, I wanted to leave it up to you to decide what happens after chapter 27. if adi and pan admit they love each other, or if she says hell no, if felix tells pan he's in love with him, if girls come to the island to add to the lost ones, if adi loves one of them, if she takes a giant jug of water from dead man's peak and travels around the enchanted forest searching for a way to heal her dreamshade poisoning without rumplestiltskin's help, or if everything freezes in time exactly where I left it.

that's the beauty of an indefinite ending – that it isn't definite. I don't want to say 'here is what happened to them for the rest of their lives, ever, the end'. so you get to choose.

and I want to thank each of you, even if you read this without a single sign that you were – no favorite, no follow, no review - thank you. but if you did any of those, thanks a million. every notification makes me smile. i didn't write this for anyone except myself, but the idea that other people might like it means everything to me. truly.

- steph :)

note: i'm working on a bunch of projects, but i'm a perfectionist so they might not be posted for a while. keep an eye on my profile and my wattpad account (orionauriga) if you'd like to see anything in the future!

another note: even though this is completed, i still absolutely love seeing notifications for it. let me know what you liked and/or didn't like - i'd love to hear!